To see a commentary note, click on a
blue
square. To see the Latin text, click on a green square. To see a
textual note, click on a red square.

THE SEVENTH BOOK

have declared in the former Book how eagerly
Kennethus and his son Malcolm did strive to settle the succession to
the crown in their
families that the eldest son might succeed the father. But what the
success thereof was will appear in the sequel. This is certain, that
the publick benefit which was promised to the whole kingdom, nor yet
the private advantage alleged to arise to our Kings thereby, were not
at all obtained by this new law. An universal good to all was
pretended in thus settling the succession, that seditions, murders
and treacheries might be prevented amongst those of the blood; and
also that ambition, with the other mischiefs accompanying it, might
be rooted out from amongst the Nobles. But, on the contrary, when I
enquire into the causes of publick grievances and compare the old
with the modern, it seems to me that all those mischiefs which we
would have avoided by this new law are so far from being extinguished
by the antiquating of the old that they rather receive a great in
crease therefrom. For, not to speak of the plots of their kindred
against those who are actually in the throne, nor of a present King’s
evil suspitions of those whom nature and the law would have accounted
as most dear to him, I say, omitting these things, which in the
series of our history will be further explained, all the miseries of
former ages may seem light and tolerable if compared with those
calamities which followed upon the death of Alexander the Third.
Neither will I insist upon the particulars following, viz., that that
law doth enervate the force of all public councils without which no
lawful government can subsist. That it doth willingly and by consent
create those evils to our selves which others who have interest in
publick governments do chiefly, if not only, deprecate, viz., to have
Kings over whom other governors must be appointed. And so the people
are to be universally committed into their power who have no power
over themselves, insomuch that those persons who are hardly brought
to obey wise, prudent and experienced Kings, are now required to
yield obedience, as it were, to the very shadow of a King, by which
means we willingly precipitate our selves into those punishments
which God threatens to those who despise and contemn His holy
majesty, namely that children, male or female, may reign over us,
whom the law of nations, and even nature it self (the mother of all
laws) hath subjected to the rule of others. As for the private
benefit that Kings aim at by this law, i. e., that they may
perpetuate their name and stock, how vain and fallacious that
pretence is, the examples of the ancients, yea even nature it self,
might inform them, if they had but considered by how many laws and
rewards the Romans endeavoured to perreniate [make enduring] the mighty
names of their families, of which yet no one footstep remains at this
day, no
not in any part of the world which they had
conquered.2.
Which disappointment doth deservedly attend those who fight even
against nature
it self by endeavouring to cloath a fading, frail
thing, subject to momentany alterations and blasts of fortune, with a
sort of perpetuity, and to endow it with a kind of eternity which
they themselves neither are partakers of, nor can be; yea, they
strive to effect it by those mediums which are most cross to their
purpose. For what is less conducive to perpetuity than tyranny? Yet
this new law makes a great step thereto, for a tyrant is, as it were,
the white [target] or mark exposed to the hate of all men,
insomuch that he cannot long subsist, and when he falls all his fall
with him. It seems to me that God doth sometimes gently chastize and
disappoint this endeavour of foolish men, and sometimes He doth
expose it even to publick scorn, as if it were emulous of His own
power. There can be no clearer or fitter example of Gods will and
pleasure than that which we have now under our hands. For Malcolm,
who so much laboured to confirm the law (which was almost forcibly
enacted by his father) by common suffrage and consent, for the Kings
children to be substituted in the room of their deceased parents,
even he left no male-child behind him, but he had two daughters, one
called Beatrix, whom he married to a Nobleman named Grimus, the Thane
of the western islands and the chief of all other Thanes, and
therefore styled in that age Abthane; the other, named Doaca, he
married to the Thane of Angus, by whom he begot Mackbeth or Macbeda, of whom in his
place.

3. DONALDUS VII, THE EIGHTY
FOURTH KING

Malcolm being
slain, as hath been related, Donaldus, his nephew by his daughter
Beatrix, succeeded him, a prince of great courtesy, and of more
indulgence to his own kindred than became a King. For he was a mild
and inclineable disposition, and from his youth he gave forth omens
of his popularity. For in the most difficult times, when he was made
Governor of Cumberland by his grandfather and could not come to the
King (by reason of the Danish troops which swarmed over the country
and stopped all passages) to swear to the laws, yet he faithfully
took part with the English until Canutus, having had the rest of
England surrendred to to him, made an expedition against him, and
then he submitted himself to the Danes on the same conditions under
which he obeyed the English before. This also was popular in him,
that he administered justice with great equity, and every year he
visited the provinces to hear the complaints of the poor, and, as
much as he could, he would not suffer the great men to oppress them.
But as these virtues did endear him to the good, so they lessen’d
his authority among the lovers of sedition, so hat his clemency to
the former occasioned the rage of wicked men against him. The
beginning of lessening and despising his government hapned in
Loch-Abyr upon the account of one Bancho, Thane of that country, a
strict lover of impartial justice. Some ill men, not enduring his
severity in punishments, made a conspiracy against him, plundered him
of his goods, and drove him away, being wounded and almost dead. As
soon as ever his wounds permitted him to endure the jogging of his
body, he took a journy and complained to the King. The King sent a
publick officer to do justice upon the offenders, but he was
grievously affronted and afterwards slain by them, so great security
did they fancy to themselves by reason of the lenity (but, as they
interpreted it, sloth) of a good King. The chief of that faction
which raised the rebellion was named Mac-duald, who, despairing of a
pardon, prepares himself for an open war. He called in the islanders
to his assistance (who were always prone to sedition) and also the
forwardest of the Irish, in hopes of prey. The told them that under
an effeminate and slothful King, who was fitter to rule monks than
warriors, there was no fear of punishment, but there might be great
hopes of advantage, and that he did not doubt but that the Scots, who
were, was it were, fettered with the chains of a long peace under the
former King, when an alarm was sounded to the war, would come in to
recover their ancient liberty.
4.
These exhortations were seconded with a succesfull beginning which much
heartned
the party. There was one Malcolm, of the prime
Nobility, sent by the King against them with some forces, but his
army was presently overthrown by them and he himself, being taken
prisoner, had his head cut off by them. The King, being troubled at
this overthrow, called a council together to consult of what was fit
to be done. Some were very slow in delivering their opinions, but
Mackbeth, kinsman to the King, laid the blame of the misfortune on
the sluggishness of former times, withal promising that if the
command or generalship were bestowed on him and Bancho, who was well
acquainted with that country, he would quickly subdue all and quiet
things. This Mackbeth was of a very sharp wit and of a very lofty
spirit, and, if moderation had accompanied it, he had been worthy of
a command, tho’ an eminent one. But in punishing offenders he
was so severe that, having no respect to the laws, he seemed soon
likely to degenerate into cruelty. When the chief command of the army
was conferred upon him, many were so terrified that, casting aside
their hopes which they had conceived by reason of the Kings slothful
temper, they hid themselves in holes and corners. The islanders and
the Irish, their flight being stopp’d, were driven into great
despair, and in a fierce fight were every one of them slain. Macduala
himself with a few others flying into a neighbour castle, being past
all hopes of pardon, redeemed himself and his from the
opprobriousness of his enemies by a voluntary death. Mackbeth, not
content with that punishment, cut off his head and sent it to the
King at Perth, and hung up the rest of his body for all to behold in
a conspicuous place. Those of the Red-shanks [the islanders] which he
took he caused to be hanged.
5. This domestick sedition being appeased, a far greater terror
succeeded and seized on him, occasioned by the Danes. For Sueno, the
powerful King of the Danes, dying, left three kingdoms to his three
sons, England to Harold, Norway to Sueno, and Denmark to Canutus.
Harold dying soon after, Canutus succeeded him in the realm of
Scotland Sueno
(or Swain), King of Norway, being emulous of his brothers glory,
crossed the
seas with a great navy and landed in Fife. Upon
the bruit [rumor] of his coming Mackbeth was sent to levy an
Army, Bancho, the other General, staying in the interim with the
King.’ Duncanus or Donald, as if he had been rouzed from a fit
of sluggishness, was forced to go meet the enemy. They fought near
Culross with
such obstinate courage that as one party was scarce able to fly, to the
other
had no heart to pursue. The Scots, who look’d upon
themselves as overcome rather by the incommodiousness of the place
than by the valour of their enemies, retreated to Perth and there
staid with the relicts of their conquered forces, waiting for the
motions of the enemy. Swain, thinking that if he pressed eagerly on
them all Scotland would speedily be his own, made towards Perth with
all his forces to besiege Duncan. His ships he sent around by the Tay
to meet him there. Duncan, tho’ he much confided in the present
posture of affairs because Mackbeth was very near him with a new
supply of force, yet being counselled by Bancho to piece out his
force by stratagem, he sent messengers, on to Mackbeth to desire him
to stop were he was, and another to Swain to treat about the
surrender of the town. The Scots desired that upon the surrender they
and theirs might have liberty to depart in safety. Swain, supposing
their request proceeded from the very bottom of despair, would hear
of nothing but surrendring at mercy. Upon this, he sent other
messengers with unlimited instructions and a command to delay time in
making conditions; who to ingratiate themselves the more, told the
Norwegians that, whilst the conditions of peace were propounding and
setling, their King would send abundance of provisions into their
camp, as knowing that they were not over-plentiful in victuals. That
gift was acceptable to the Norwegians, not so much on the account of
the Scots bounty or their own penury as that they thought was a sign
their spirits were cowed out and quite broken. Whereupon a good deal
of bread and wine was sent, both wine pressed out of the grape and
also strong drink made of barly-malt mixed with the juice of a
poysonous herb whereof abundance grows in Scotland called Somniferous
Night-shade. The stalk of it is above two foot long and in its upper
part spreads into branches. the leaves are broadish, acuminated on
the outside and faintly green. The berrys are great and of a black
colour when they are ripe, which proceed out of the stalk under the
bottom of the leaves. Their taste is sweetish and almost insipid. It
hath a very small seed, as little as the grains of a fig. The virtue
of the fruit, root, and especially of the seed, is soporiferous, and
will make men mad if they be taken in too great quantities.
6. With this herb all the provision was infected, and they that
carried it, to prevent all suspition of fraud, tasted of it before
and invited the Danes to drink huge draughts thereof. Swain himself
in token of good will did the same, according to the custom of his
nation. But Duncan, knowing that the potion would reach to their very
vitals whilst they were asleep, had in great silence admitted
Mackbeth with his forces into the city by a gate which was furthest
off from the enemies camp, and, understanding by his spies that the
enemy was fast asleep and full of wine, he sent Bancho before, who
well knew all the avenues both of that place and of the enemies camp
too, with the greatest part of the army, placing the rest in ambush.
He, entring their camp and making a great shout, found all things in
a greater posture of negligence than he imagined before. There were a
few raised up at the noise, who running up and down like mad-men were
slain as they were met. The others were killed sleeping. Their King,
who was almost dead drunk, wanting not only strength but sense also,
was snatcht up by some few who were not so much overcome with wine as
the rest, and laid like a log or beast upon an horse which they
casually lighted on, and so carried to the ships. There their case
was almost as bad as in the camp, for almost all the seamen were
slain ashore, so that there could scarce be got together so many of
them as were sufficient to guide one ship. Yet by this means the King
escaped to his country. The rest of the ships by stress of weather
fell foul upon one another and were sunk, and by the accession of
sand and other trash which the water carries heaped up together,
there was made an hillock dangerous to sailers, which the vulgar call
Drumilaw-sands.
While the Scots were joyous for this victory, obtained without blood,
news was brought that a fleet of Danes rode at King-horn, which was
sent by Canutus to help Swain. The soldiers and passengers, landing,
did seize upon and carry away the goods of the Fifans without any
resistance. Bancho was sent with forces against them, who, assaulting
the foremost, made a great slaughter amongst them. These were the
principal men of the nation, the rest were easily driven back to
their ships. Bancho is reported to have sold the burying places for
the slain for a great deal of money. Their sepulchres, they say, are
yet to be seen in the isle Aemona. ’Tis
reported that the Danes, having made so many unlucky expeditions into
Scotland,
bound themselves by a solemn oath never to
return as enemies thither any more.
7.
When matters thus prosperously succeeded with the Scots both at home
and abroad,
and all things flourished in peace, Mackbeth, who
had always a disgust at the un-active slothfulness of his cousin, and
thereupon had conceived a secret hope of the kingdom in his mind, was
further encouraged in his ambitious thoughts by a dream which he had.
For one night, when he was far distant from the King, he seemed to
see three women whose beauty was more august and surprizing than bare
womens useth to be, of which one saluted him Thane of Angus, another
Thane of Murray, and a third King of Scotland. His mind, which was
sick betwixt hope and desire, was mightily encouraged by this dream,
so that he contrived all possible ways by which he might obtain the
kingdom, in order to which a just occasion was offered to him, as he
thought. Duncan begat two sons on the daughter of Sibert, a petty
King of Northumberland, Malcolm Cammorus (which is as much as
jolt-head [blockhead]) and Donaldus, sirnamed Banus, i. e.,
white. Of these he made Malcolm, scarce yet out of his childhood,
Governor of Cumberland. Mackbeth took this matter mightily hainously
in regard he look’d upon it as an obstacle of delay to him in
his obtaining the kingdom. For having arrived at the enjoyment of his
other honours promised him by his dream, by this means he thought
that either he should be secluded altogether from the kingdom, or
else should be much retarded in the enjoyment thereof, in regard the
government of Cumberland was always look’d upon as the first
step to the kingdom of Scotland. Besides, his mind, which was feirce
enough of it self, was spurred on by the daily importunities of his
wife (who was privy to all his counsels). Whereupon, communicating
the matter to his most intimate friends, amongst whom Bancho was one,
he got a fit opportunity at Innerness to way-lay the King, and so
slew him in the seventh year of his reign, and gathering a company
together went to Scone, and under the shelter of popular favour made
himself King. Duncan’s children were astonished at this sudden
disaster. They saw their father was slain, the author of the murder
in the throne, and the snares laid for them to take away their lives,
that so by their deaths the kingdom might be confirmed to Mackbeth.
Whereupon they shifted up and down and hid themselves, and thus for a
time escaped his fury. But perceiving that no place could long secure
them from his rage, and that, being of a feirce nature, there was no
hope of clemency to be expected from him, they fled several ways,
Malcolm into Cumberland and Donald to the kindred of his father in
the Aebudae islands.

8. MACKBETH, THE EIGHTY FIFTH KING

Mackbeth, to
confirm the ill-gotten kingdom to himself, procured the valour of the
Nobles by great gifts, being secure of the Kings children because of
their age, and of his neighbouring princes in regard of their mutual
animosities and discords. Thus having engaged the great men, he
determined to procure the favour of the vulgar by justice and equity,
and to retain it by severity if nothing else would do. Whereupon he
determined with himself to punish the free-booters or thieves who had
taken courage from the lenity of Duncan, but foreseeing that this
could not be done without great tumults and much ado, he devised this
project, which was to sow the seeds of discord amongst them by some
fit men for that purpose, that thereupon they might challenge one
another, and so some of them might fight in equal and divided numbers
one with another. All this was to be done on one and the same day,
and that in the most remote parts of Scotland too. When they all met
at the time appointed, they were taken by an ambush which he had laid
for that purpose. Their punishment strook a terrour into the rest.
Besides, he put to death the Thanes of Caithnes, Ross, Sutherland and
Narn, and some others of the clans, by whose fewds the commonalty was
miserably harassed before. Afterwards he went into the Aebudae
islands and used severe justice there. After his return from thence,
he once or twice summoned Macgill or Macgild, the powerfullest man in
all Galway, to appear, but he refused so to do rather out of fear for
being of Malcolm’s faction than for the guilt of the crimes
objected to him, whereupon he sent forces against him, who overthrew
him in battel and cut off his head. The publick peace being thus
restored, he applied his mind to make laws (a thing almost wholly
neglected by former Kings), and indeed he enacted many good and
useful ones, which are now either wholly unknown or else lie
unobserved, to the great damage of the publick. In a word, he so
managed the government for ten years that, if he had not obtained it
by violence, he might have been accounted inferior to none of the
former Kings.
9.
But when he had so strengthened himself with the aid and favour of the
multitude
that he feared no force to disturb him, the murder of
the King (as ’tis very probable) hurried his mind into
dangerous precipices, so that he converted his government, got by
treachery, into a cruel tyranny. He vented the first shock of his
inhumanity upon Bancho, who was his companion in the Kings parricide.
Some ill men
had spread a kind of prophecie abroad among the vulgar that hereafter
his posterity should enjoy the kingdom, whereupon, fearing lest he,
being a powerful and active man and also of the blood royal, should
imitate the example proposed by himself, he courteously invited him
and his son to supper, but in his return he caused him to be slain,
as if a sudden fray and tumult had arisen. His son Felanchus, being
not known in the dark, escaped the ambush, and being informed by his
friends how his father was treacherously slain by the King and that
his life was also sought after, he fled secretly into Wales. Upon the
murder, so cruelly and perfidiously committed, the Nobles were afraid
of themselves, insomuch that they all departed to their own homes and
came but few of them, and those very seldom, to Court, so that the
Kings cruelty being partly discovered by some, and partly vehemently
suspected by all, mutual fear and hatred sprung up betwixt him and
the Nobility. Whereupon, seeing the matter could no longer be
concealed, he broke forth into open tyranny, and the rich and
powerful, for light, frivolous, and many times but pretended causes,
were put to death. Their confiscated goods helped to maintain a band
of debauchees which he had about him under the name of a guard. And
yet the thought that his life was not sufficiently secured by them
neither, so that he resolved to build a castle on the top of the hill
Dunsinnan where there was a large prospect all over the country,
which work proceeding but slowly on by reason of the difficulty of
carriage of materials thither, he commanded in all the Thanes of the
whole kingdom, and so dividing the task amongst them, they themselves
were to oversee that the labourers did their duty.
10.
At that time, Mackduff was the Thane of Fife, a very powerful man in
his country.
He, being loth to commit his life unto the Kings
hands, went not himself, but sent thither many workmen, and some of
them his intimate friends, to press on the work. The King, either out
of a desire (as was pretended) to see how the building proceeded, or
else to apprehend Mackduff (as he himself feared), came to view the
structure, and by chance spying a teem of Mackduff’s oxen not
able to draw up their load against a steep hill, he took thence a
willing occasion to vent his passion against the Thane, saying that
he knew well enough before his disobedient temper, and therefore was
resolved to punish it, and to make him an example he threatened to
lay the yoke upon his own neck, instead of his oxen. Mackduff,
hearing of it, commended the care of his family to his wife, and
without any delay fitted up a small vessel, as well as the streights
of time permitted, and so passed over into Lothian, and from thence
into England. The King, hearing that he intended to fly, made haste
into Fife with a strong band of men to prevent him, but, he being
departed before, the King was presently admitted into his castle,
where he poured out all his fury upon the Thane’s wife and
children who were there present. His goods were confiscated, he
himself was proclaimed traitor, and a grievous punishment was
threatened to any who dared to converse with or entertain him. He
exercised also great cruelty against others, if they were either
noble or rich, without distinction. For now the Nobility was despised
by him and he managed the government by domestick counsels. In the
mean time Macduff, arriving in England, found Malcolm there, royally
treated by King Edward. For Edward, when the Danes power was broken
in England, being recalled form banishment, did favour Malcolm, who
was bright to him by Sibert (his grandfather by his mothers side) for
many reasons, as either because his father and grandfather, when
Governors of Cumberland, had always favoured the concerns of his
ancestors as much as the times would permit them to do; or else
because the similitude of events and the remembrance of dangers did
assimilate their minds, for each King had been unjustly banished by
tyrants; or lastly because the affliction of Kings doth conciliate
and move the minds even of the greatest strangers to pity and favour
them. Whereupon the Thane, as soon as he had opportunity to speak
with Malcolm, in a long discourse declared to him the necessity of
his unhappy flight, the cruelty of Mackbeth against all ranks of men,
with the universal hatred of the people conceived against him, so
that he advised him in an accurate harangue, as he was a son, so to
endeavour the recovery of his fathers kingdom, especially seeing he
could not, without incurring a great deal of guilt, leave the murder
of his father to pass unrevenged, nor neglect the miseries of the
people which God had committed to his charge, nor, finally, ought he
to shut his ears against the just petitions of his friends. Besides,
he told him that King Edward was so gracious a prince that he would
not be wanting to him, his friend and suppliant; that the people did
also favour him and hated the tyrant; in fine, that God’s
favour would attend the good against the impious, if he were not
wanting to himself.
11.
Malcolm, who had often before been persuaded and solicited to return by
messengers
secretly sent to him from Mackbeth, that he
might not be ensnared before he committed so great a concern to
fortune, resolved to try the faithfulness of Mackduff, and therefore
he framed his answer thus. “I know (says he) that all what thou
hast said is true, but I am afraid that you who invite me to
undertake the regal government do not thoroughly know my disposition.
For those vices which have already destroyed many Kings, viz., lust
and avarice, do almost reign even in me too, and tho now my private
fortune doth hide and disguise them, yet the liberty of a kingdom
will let loose the reins thereunto. And therefore (said he) pray have
a care that you invite me not rather to my ruin than to a throne.”
When Macduff had replyed thereto that the lust and desire of many
concubines might be prevented by a lawful marriage, and that avarice
might be also bounded and forborn when the fear of penury (as it must
be upon a throne) is removed, Malcolm subjoyned that he had rather
now make an ingenious [ingenuous, frank ] confession to him
to him as a friend than to be found guilty hereafter to the great
damage to them both. “For my self, I do deal plainly with you
(said he), there is no truth nor sincerity in me. I confide in no
body living, but I change my designs and counsels upon every blast of
suspition, and thus from the inconstancy of my own disposition I use
to make a judgment of other mens.” Whereupon Mackduff replied, “Avant
(says he) thou disgrace and prodigy of the royal name and stock,
worthier to be sent into the remotest desert than to be called to a
throne.” And in a great anger he was about to fling away. Then
Malcolm took him by the hand and declared the cause of this his
dissimulation to him, telling them that he had been so often
assaulted by the wiles of Mackbeth that he did not dare lightly to
trust every body. But now he saw no cause to suspect any fraud in
Macduff in respect either of his lineage, his manners, fame, nor
fortune. Thus they, plighting their faith one to another, consulted
concerning the destruction of the tyrant, and advised their friends
of it by secret messages. King Edward assisted him with ten thousand
men, over whom Malcolm’s grandfather by the mother’s side
was made General. At the report of this armies march there was a
great combustion in Scotland, and many flock’d in daily to the
new King. Mackbeth, being deserted by almost all his men in so
suddain a revolt, not knowing what better course to take, shut
himself up in the castle of Dunsinnan
and sent his friends into the Aebudae and into Ireland with money to
hire soldiers. Malcolm, understanding his design, makes up directly
towards him, the people praying for him all along as he went, and
with joyful acclamations wishing him good success. His soldiers took
this as an omen of victory and thereupon stuck up green boughs in
their helmets, representing an army triumphing rather than going to
fight. Mackbeth, being terrified at the confidence of his enemy,
immediately fled, and his soldiers, forsaken by their leader,
surrendred themselves up to Malcolm. Some of our writers to here
record many fables which are like Milesian tales
and fitter for the stage than a history, and therefore I omit them.
Mackbeth reigned seventeen years. ln the first ten he performed the
duty of a very good King, in the last seven he equalled the cruelty
of the worst of tyrants.

12. MALCOLM III, THE EIGHTY
SIXTH KING

Malcolm,
having thus recovered his fathers kingdom, was declared King at Scone
the 25th day of April in the year of our redemption 1057. At the
entrance of his reign he convened an assembly of the Estates at
Forfar, where the first thing he did was to restore to the children
their father’s estates who had been put to death by Mackbeth.
He is thought by some to have been the first that introduced new and
foreign names as distingishments of degrees in honour, which he
borrowed from his neighbor-nations, and are no less barbarous than
the former were, such as Dukes, Marquesses, Earls, Barons, Riders or
Knights. Mackduff, the Thane of Fife, was the first who had the title
of Earl conferred upon him, and many others afterwards according to
their respective merits were honoured with new titles. Some write
that at that the Noblemen began to be sirnamed by their lands, which,
I think, is false, for that custom is not yet received amongst the
ancient Scots, and besides, then all Scotland used their ancient
rights and customs, but, instead of a sirname, after the manner of
the Greeks they added their fathers name to their own, or else
adjoyned a word taken from some event, or from some mark of body or
mind. And that this custom did then obtain amongst the Gauls is plain
by those royal sirnames of Crassus, Calvus, Balbus [The Fat, The
Bald, The Stammerer], and also by the sirnames of many noble
families in England, especially such as followed William the
Conqueror and fixed their habitations there. For the custom of taking
sirnames from lands was received but lately amongst the other Gauls,
as appears from Frossard’s history,
no mean author.
13. Mackduff had three request granted to him as a reward for his
services, one that his posterity should place the King who was to be
crowned in the chair of state; another that they should lead the van
of the Kings armies; and a third that if any of his family were
guilty of the unpremeditated slaughter of a Nobleman he should pay
four and twenty marks of silver as a fine, if of a plebeian, twelve
marks, which last law was observed till the days of our fathers, as
long as any of that family were in being. Whilst these things were
acted at Forfar, they who remained of the faction of Mackbeth carried
his son Luthlac to Scone (who was sirnamed Fatuus from his
disposition) and there he was saluted King. Malcolm assaulted him in
he valley Bogian, where
he was slain three months after he had usurped the name of King. Yet
out of respect
to his kingly race, his and his fathers
bodies were buried in the royal sepulchres in Ionia. Afterwards he
reigned four years in peace. Then word was brought him that a great
troop of robbers were nested in Cockburn-Forest, and that they
infested Lothian and Merch to the great damage of the husbandmen.
Patric Dunbar with some trouble overcame them, losing forth of his
own men in the onset and killing 600 of them. Forty more of them were
taken prisoners and hanged. Patric for this exploit was made Earl of
Merch. The kingdom was now so settled that no open force could hurt
the King, yet he was assaulted by private conspiracies. The whole
plot was discovered to him, whereupon he sent for the head of the
faction, and after much familiar discourse he led him aside into a
secret valley, commanding his followers to stay behind. There he
upbraided him with the former benefits bestowed on him, and declared
to him the plot he had contrived against his life, adding further, “If
thou hast courage enough, why dost thou not now set upon me, seeing
we are both armed, that so thou mayst obtain thy desire by valour,
not by treachery?” He, being amazed at this sudden discovery,
fell down on his knees and asked pardon of the King, who being a
merciful as well as valiant prince, easily forgave him. Matthew Paris
makes mention of this passage.
14. In the mean time Edgar, to whom next to Edward the crown of
England belonged, being driven by contrary winds came into Scotland
with his whole family. What I am to speak concerning this person,
that it may be the better understood, I shall fetch things a little
higher. Edmond, King of England, being slain by the treachery of his
subjects, Canutus, the Dane who reigned over part of the island,
presently seized upon the whole. At first, he nobly treated Edward
and Edmond, the sons of the deceased Edmond, when they were brought
to him. Afterwards, being edged on by wicked ambition, he, desirous
to confirm the kingdom to his posterity by their destruction, sent
them away privately to Valgar, Governour of Svedland, to be murdered
there. Valgar, understanding their noble stock and considering also
their age and innocence, withal taking compassion of their condition
and fortune, sent them to Hungary to King Salomon, pretending to
Canutus that he had put them to death. There they were royally
educated, and so much grateful towardliness appeared in Edward that
Salomon culled him out of all the young Nobles to give him his
daughter Agatha to wife. By her he had Edgar. Margaret and
Christiana.
In the mean time, Canutus dying, Hardicanute succeeded him. When he
was slain, Edward was recalled from Normandy, whither he was before
banished together with his brother Alured. Earl Godwyn, a powerful
man of English blood, but who had married the daughter of Canutus,
was sent to fetch him home. He, being desirous to transfer the
kingdom into his own family, caused Alured to be poysoned. As for
Edward, he was preserved rather by Gods providence than by any human
counsel, and reigned most devoutly in England, But, wanting children,
his chief care was to recall his kinsman out of Hungary to undertake
the government, alleging that when Edgar returned he would willingly
surrender up all to him, but his modesty outdid the Kings piety, for
he refused to accept of the kingdom as long as he was alive. At
length, upon Edwards death. Harald, Godwyns son, invaded the throne,
yet he dealt kindly with Agatha, the Hungarian, and her children. But
he being also overthrown by William the Norman, Edgar, to avoid
Williams cruelty, resolved with his mother and sisters to return into
Hungary. But by a tempest he was driven into Scotland. There he was
courteously entertained by Malcolm, who made him his kinsman also by
the marriage of his sister Margaret. William, then reigning in
England, upon every light occasion was very cruel against the Nobles
either of English or Danish extraction. But understanding what was
a-doing in Scotland, and fearing a tempest might arise from thence,
he sent an herald to demand Edgar, denouncing war against Scotland
unless he were surrendred up.
15.
Malcolm looked upon it as a cruel and faithless thing to deliver up his
suppliant,
guest and kinsman (and one against whom his very
enemies could object no crime) to his capital enemy to be put to
death, and therefore resolved to suffer any thing rather than so to
do. And thereupon he not only detained and harboured Edgar, but also
gave admission to his friends, who in great numbers were banished
from their own homes, and gave them lands to live upon, whose
posteritys were there propagated into many rich and opulent families.
Upon this occasion, there followed a war betwixt the Scots and
English, wherein Sibert, King of Northumberland favouring Edgar,
joyned his forces with the Scots. The Norman, being puff’d up
with the good success of his affairs, made light of the Scotish war,
and thinking to end it in a short time, he sent one Roger, a Nobleman
of his own country, with forces into Northumberlandand
slew
some who thought to stop him from plundering. But as he was returning
with a great booty Malcolm and Sibert set upon him, slew and took
many of his army, and recovered the prey. When his army was
recruited, Robert, William’s son, was sent down thither, but he
made no great earnings of it neither, only he pitched his camp at the
River Tine, and he rather kept off than made or inferred
[inflicted] the war. In the mean time he repaired Newcasle,
which was almost decayed by reason of its antiquity. William being
thus wearied with a war more tedious than profitable, his courage
being somewhat cooled, applied himself to thoughts of peace, which
was made on these conditions: that in Stanmore, i. e. a stony heath
(a name imposed on it for that very cause) lying between
Richmond-shire and Cumberland, the bounds of both kingdoms should be
fixed; and that in the boundary a cross of stone should be erected
which should contain the statues and arms of the Kings of both sides
(that cross as long as it stood was called Kings Cross); that Malcolm
should enjoy Cumberland upon the same terms as his his ancestors had
held it. Edgar was also received into William’s favour and
endowed with large revenues, and that he might prevent all occasion
of suspition of his innovating things he never departed from the
Court. Voldiosus also, the son of Silbert, was to have his fathers
estate restored to him. And besides, he was admitted into affinity
with the King by marrying a neice of his born of his daughter.
16.
Intestine tumults did succeed this external peace, for the men of
Galway and
of the Aebudae did ravage and commit murders over all
their neighbouring parts, and the Murray-men, with those of Ross,
Caithness and their allies, made a conspiracy and, assuming their
neighbour islanders to their aid, gave an omen of greater war.
Walter, the nephew of Bancho by his son Fleanchus, who was before
received into favour with the King, was sent against the Galway-men,
and Macduff against the other rebels whilst the King himself was
gathering greater forces. Walter slew the head of that faction, and
so quell’d the common souldiers, that the King at his return
made him Lord Steward of all Scotland for his good service. This
magistrate was to gather in all the Kings revenues; also, he had a
jurisdiction such as the Sheriffs of counties have, and he is the
same as that which our ancestors called a Thane. But now a days, the
English speech getting the better of our country language, the Thanes
of counties are in many places called Stewards, and he which was
anciently called Abthane is now the Lord High Steward of Scotland.
Yet in some few places the name of Thane doth yet remain. From this
Walter the family of the Steuarts, who have so long reigned over
Scotland, took its beginning. But Macduff, warring in another
province, when he came to the borders of Marr, the Marrians promised
him a sum of money if he would not enter into their province. And he,
fearing the multitude of the enemy, did protract the time in
proposals and terms of a pretended peace till the King arrived with
greater forces. When they came to the village Monimuss
they
joined camps, and the King, being troubled at the bruit of the enemies
numbers,
promised to the devote the village whither he was
going to St. Andrew the Apostle, the tutelary Saint of Scotland, if
he returned victor from that expedition. After a few removes he came
to the River Spey, the violentest current in all Scotland, where he
beheld a greater number of soldiers than he thought could have been
levied out of those countries, standing on the other side of the
river to hinder his passage. Whereupon the, the standard bearer
making an halt and delaying to enter the river, he snatch’d the
standard out of his hand and give it to one Alexander Carron, a
knight of known valour, whose posterity had ever afterwards the
honour of carrying the Kings standard in the wars. And, in stead of
Carron, the name of Scrimger was given him because he, being full of
true valour though ignorant of the modes and niceties of war, had
out-done one who was a master in handling of arms and who valued
himself highly upon that account. As the King was entring the river,
the mitred priests with their mitres on their heads prevented him;
who by his permission having passed over to the enemy before had
ended the war without blood. The Nobles surrendred themselves upon
quarter for life. Those who were the most seditious and the authors
of the rising were tryed, had their goods confiscated, and themselves
condemned to perpetual imprisonment.
17. Peace being thus by his great industry obtained both at home and
abroad, he converted his pains to amend the publick manners, for he
lived devoutly and piously himself and provoked others by his example
to a modest, just and sober life. It is thought that he was assisted
herein by the counsel and monitions of his wife, a choice woman and
eminently pious. She omitted no office of humanity towards the poor
or the priests, neither did Agatha, the mother, or Christiana, the
sister, come behind the Queen in any religious duty. For, because a
nuns life was then accounted the great nourisher and maintainer of
piety, both of them, leaving the toilsome cares of the world, shut
themselves up in a monastery appointed for virgins. Then the King to
the four former Bishopricks of St. Andrews, Glasgow, Whithorn and
Murthlack (where
the old discipline, by the bishops sloth and default, was either
remitted or
laid quite aside) added that of Murray and
Caithness, procuring men pious and learned, according to the rate of
those times, to fill the Sees. And whereas also luxury began to
abound in those days, in regard many English came in and great
commerce was had with foreign nations, and also many English exiles
were entertained and scatt’red almost all over the kingdom, he
laboured, though to little purpose, to restrain it. But he had the
hardest task of all with the Nobles, whom he endeavoured to reclaim
to the practice of their ancient parsimony. For they, having once
swallowed the bait of pleasure, did not only grow worse and worse,
but even ran headlong into debauchery; yea, they laboured to cover
that foul vice under the name of neatness, bravery and gallantry.
Malcolm, forseeing that such courses would be the ruin not only of
religion but also of military discipline, did first of all reform his
own family very exactly; afterwards he made most severe sumptuary
laws, denouncing great punishment against the violators of them. Yet
by those remedies he rather stopp’d than cured the disease.
Nevertheless as long as he lived he employed all his endeavours to
work a thorough reform therein. It is also reported that his wife
obtained of him that, whereas the Nobles had gradually obtained a
priviledge to lye the first night with any married bride by the law
of Eugenius, that custom should be altered and the husband have
liberty to redeem it by paying half a mark of silver, which payment
is yet called marcheta mulerium. 18.
Whilst Malcolm was thus busied in reforming the publick manners,
William, King
of England, dies. His son William Rufus succeeded him.
Peace could not long be continued between two Kings of such different
dispositions. For the King of Scots chose that time to build two
temples or cathedrals, one at Durham in England, the other at
Dumferling in Scotland, upon both which piles he bestowed great cost,
so that he endeavoured to retrieve Church-affairs, which then began
to flag and decay. And withal he translated Turgot, Abbat of the
monks at Durham, to the Bishoprick of St. Andrews. This he did whilst
Rufus was plucking down towns and monasteries and making forests that
he might have the more room to hunt in. And when Anselme the Norman,
then Arch-bishop of Canterbury, did with freedom rebuke him for the
same, he banished him the land. He also sought for an occasion of war
against the Scots. And thereupon he surprized the castle of Alnwick
in Northumberland, having slain the garison which was therein.
Malcolm, having demanded restitution but in vain, besieged the castle
with a great army. They therein, being reduced to great extremity and
want, talk’d of surrendering it, and desired the King to come
and receive the keys with his own hand. Which as he was doing, being
tendred to him on the point of a spear, the solder run him into the
eye and killed him. And his son Edward also, being forward to revenge
his fathers death and thereupon more negligent of his own safety,
made any unwary assault upon the enemy, wherein he received a wound
of which he died soon after. The Scots, being afflicted and troubled
at this double slaughter of two of their Kings, broke up the siege
and returned home. Margaret did not long survive her husband and son,
but died of grief. The bodies of the Kings, which at first were
buried at Tinmouth (a monastery at the mouth of Tine), were
afterwards brought back to Dumferling. Malcolm held the kingdom
thirty and three years, being noted for no vice but famous to
posterity for his great and many virtues. He had six sons by his wife
Margaret, of whom Edward was slain by the English in the siege of
Alnwick castle; Edmond and Etheldred were banished into England by
their uncle Donald, where they died. The other three, Edgar,
Etheldred and David, succeeded in the kingdom one after another. He
also had two daughters, the elder, Maud, sirnamed the Good, married
Henry, King of England; the younger, named Mary, had Eustace, Earl of
Bologn, for her husband. Several prodigies hapned in those days, and
in particular there was such a mighty and unusual an inundation of
the German Ocean that it did not only drown the fields and country,
and choked them up with sand, but also overthrew villages, towns and
castles. And besides, there were great and terrible thunders, and
more were killed with thunderbolts than were ever recorded to have
perished by that death in Britain before.

19. DONALDUS VIII, SIRNAMED BANUS, THE EIGHTY
SEVENTH KING

Upon the
death of Malcolm, Donaldus Banus, i. e., The White, his brother, who
for fear of Mackbeth had fled into the Aebudae, was with great
facility declared King. for he had promised all the islands to
Magnus, King of Norway, if by his assistance he might enjoy the
kingdom of Scotland. And in this his obtaining of the kingdom those
were most assistant to him who did falsely accuse the former King for
corrupting the discipline of his ancestors, and withal who stomached
[were angry] that the banished English should enjoy the
estates of Scots in Scotland. Edgar, in such a suddain mutation of
things being afraid and solicitous for his sisters children, which
were yet but young, caused them to be transported to him into
England. But this piety of the good man was calumniated by some. For
Orgarus, an Englishman seeking to curry favour with King Rufus,
accused him that he had secretly boasted that he and his kindred were
lawful heirs to the crown. The accuser was not able to make good his
allegation by any witnesses, and therefore the matter was adjudged to
be decided by a duel, wherein the accuser was overcome by another
Englishman who offered him the combate instead of Edgar, who was now
grown old and also sickly. All good men who had a veneration for the
memory of Malcolm and Margaret hated Donald, who by foreign aid in
conjunction with those of his own faction had seized on the kingdom.
And he by his rashness did much increase the hatred conceived against
him, and by severe threats which he uttered amongst his familiars
against the Nobles who would not swear allegiance to him. And
therefore they sent for Duncan, a base-born son of Malcolm’s,
who had served long, with credit, in the wars under William Rufus, to
oppose Donald. At his coming many revolted from Donald, so that he
was diffident of his own state, and therefore fled into the Aebudae
about six months after he had usurped the throne.

20. DUNCAN, THE EIGHTY EIGHTH KING

Neither did
Duncan reign long, for he, being a military man and not so skilful in
the arts of peace, carried it more imperiously than a peaceable and
civil government required, so that he quickly fell into the hatred of
the major part of his subjects. When Donaldus, who observed all his
motions, heard thereof in his banishment, he corrupted Macpendir,
Earl of Mern, and by him caused Duncan to be slain in the night in
Monteath, a year and six months after he began to reign. As for
Donald, he governed a troublesom kingdom for about three years; good
men rather tolerated him (for want of a better) than approving him.
The English on the one side, and the islanders on the other, in his
time much molested Scotland. The envy also against him was heightned
in that Magnus, King of Norway, had seized on the western islands,
which though he seemed to have been done by force, yet all men smelt
out the cheat in regard Donald did not so much as stir at so great an
affront. And at last the publick indignation waxed hotter against him
when the vulgar understood that it was done by a secret agreement and
paction betwixt him and Magnus.

21. EDGAR, THE EIGHTY NINTH KING

Upon those
disgusts secret messengers were dispatched to Edgar, Malcolm’s
son, that he would come over and be General in order to obtain the
kingdom; and as soon as he appeared upon the Borders they promised to
flock into him. And they were as good as their words. for Edgar,
being assisted with a small force by Rufus at the instance of Edgar
his uncle, had scarce entred Scotland before Donald, being forsaken
of his men, fled away; but being pursued and taken, was brought back
to Edgar, who committed him to prison, where he died soon after.
Edgar, having recovered the kingdom by the general suffrage of all
the Estates, first of all he made peace with William, King of
England, and he dying without children, he renewed it with Henry his
brother. He gave him Maud his sister to wife, sirnamed the Good from
her virtuous manners (as I said before). By her he
had William, Richard, Eufemia and Maud. Edgar reigned nine years and
six months in great peace, reverenced and beloved by good men, and so
formidable to the bad that in all his reign there were no civil
tumults or seditions, nor any fear of a foreign enemy. One monument
of his praise was the monastery of Coldingham,
dedicated to St. Ebb the virgin, which he built in the seventh year
of his reign, though afterwards it was transferred into the name of
Cuthbert.

22. ALEXANDER I, THE NINETIETH KING

Edgar dying
without issue, his brother Alexander, sirnamed Acer, or The Fierce,
succeeded him. In the very beginning of his reign some youngsters
that loved to fish in troubled waters, imagining that he would be a
peaceable (or, as they interpreted it, a sluggish) King, as his
brother was, conspired to take away his life, that so they might rob
and plunder with more freedom. The matter being discovered to him, he
pursued the conspirators unto the furthest part of Ross. When they
came to the River Spey they thought to stop the Kings pursuit by the
rapidness of the river. And besides, the Kings friends would not
suffer him to enter the river because, the tide coming in, they
judged it unpassable. Yet he set spurs to his horse and was about to
pass over, the rest, lest they might seem to forsake their King in a
danger so great, following him. But his own men (as I said) drew him
back, so that he sent over part of his army under the command of
Alexander Carron, the son of that Alexander I mentioned before, whose
miraculous boldness in passing the river with his forces struck such
a terrour into the enemy that they presently betook themselves to
their heels. Many were slain in the pursuit. Their leaders were then
taken, or else afterwards brought to the KIng, and were all hanged
up. This expedition procured him peace, even to the end of his life.
As he was returning through Mern, a poor woman met him, grievously
complaining that her husband had been scourged with a whip of thongs
by the Earl of Marn’s son, because he had sued him for a debt.
The King, hearing it, presently in great disdain leapt from his horse
and would not stir from the place till the offender had received
condign punishment. Then he went to Envergoury,
or,
as some write, to Ballegary, Edgar’s town. Some write that
the sirname of Acer was given for those exploits, but others say it
had a more tragick original, viz., that some thieves, having
corrupted one of his bed-chamber, were privately admitted thereinto
whilest he was asleep, and, their suddain rushing in awakening him,
he first slew his treacherous servant, and afterwards six of the
thieves. Whereupon an hubbub was raised in the Court and the rest
fled, but Alexander pursued them so fiercely that most of them were
slain.
23.
Afterwards he turned his thoughts to the works of peace. He built
Michael’s Church in Scone from the very ground. The college of
priests which was there he turned into a monastery for monks. Being
once carried by tempest into the isle Aemona,
he was there reduced to great want and hunger, for neither he nor his
companions could procure any food for some days but what they got
from those that lived solitary lives, vulgarly called hermits. He
built also a church there in memory of St. Columb, supplying it with
Canons, as they call them, and lands to maintain them. He also gave
great guifts and largesses, and settled revenues on St. Andrews,
which was rich enough before. He finished the church at Dumferling
which his father had begun, and endowed it with revenues. After these
transactions in peace and war, when he had reigned seventeen years,
he departed this life, leaving no children by Sibyl, his wife,
daughter of William the Norman.

23. DAVID I, THE NINETY FIRST KING

His brother
David succeeded him in the kingdom in the year of Christ 1124. He,
seeing that his brothers reigned successively one after another in
Scotland, stayed with his sister Maud in England, There he married
Maud, his niece, a woman of great beauty, wealth and nobility. For
Voldiosus of Northumberland was her father, and her mother was
Judith, niece to William the Norman. On her he begot a son named
Henry, in whom both his father’s and mother’s disposition
did presently appear. By this marriage his revenues were much
encreased by the accession of Northumberland and Huntington-shire
thereto. Thus with the universal gratulation of his subjects he came
into Scotland to possess the kingdom. ’Tis true the memory of
his parents was of great force to procure him the favour of the
people, yet his own virtue was such that he stood in no need of any
adventitious help. For as in other virtues he equalled other good
Kings, so in this condescention to hear the causes of the poor he was
much superior to them. As to the complaints of the rich, he heard
them himself, and if a false judgment had been given he would not
rescind it, but compelled the judge himself to pay the damages
awarded. He restrained luxury, which then began to spread, according
to the example of his father. He banished Epicures, and such as
studied arts to provoke the appetite, out of the kingdom. He far
exceeded the beneficence of his parents and allies (which were worthy
rather of pardon than praise) in increasing the revenues of the
Church. He repaired monasteries, whether decayed by age or ruined by
the wars, and he also built new ones from the ground. To the six
Bishopricks before he added four more, Ross, Brechin, Dunkelden and
Dunblain. He almost impoverished the succeeding Kings
to endow them, for he bestowed upon them a great part of the royal
revenue. Johannes Major,
who when I was but a youth was famous for his theological studies,
having highly praised this King for his other actions, yet blames his
profuse lavishness in endowing monasteries in a solemn (and, I wish,
it had been an undeserved) oration. And I the more wonder at this
immoderate profusion of the publick stock and patrimony because in
those very times St. Bernard sharply reproves the priests and monks
in his invective and severe sermons for their excessive luxury and
expence, which yet, if compared with that of our age, seems but
moderate. And the fruits which followed these donations shew that the
design was not well grounded. For, as in bodies too corpulent the use
of all the members ceases, so the sparks of wit, oppressed by luxury,
did thereby languish in abbies. The study of learning was extinct,
piety degenerated into superstition, and the seeds of all vices
sprung up in them as in an unplowed field.
24. All the time of his reign he had but one commotion, and that was
rather a tumult than a war. And it was quickly ended in the slaughter
of Aeneas, Earl of Murray, with a great number of his followers.
Malcolm Mackbeth, endeavouring to raise a new sedition, was committed
prisoner to the castle of Roxburgh.
Other matters succeeded according to his desire, but yet a twofold
distress, or rather calamity, seized him, one from the untimely death
of his wife, the other of his son. As for his wife Maud, she was a
woman of high descent, of exquisite beauty and most accomplished
manners. He loved her passionately whilst she lived, and the loss of
her in the flower of her age did so affect him that for twenty years
after he lived a widower, neither did he touch any other woman all
the while. And yet the greatness of his sorrow was no hindrance to
him from managing the publick offices and concerns both of peace and
war. Concerning his son I will speak in
due place. David thus addicted himself to the arts of
peace, but some troublesom matters in England drew him unwillingly
into a war. The occasion, this: all the off-spring of King Henry of
England, besides his daughter Maud, were drowned in their passage out
of France into England, which misfortune did so grieve him that (it
is reported) he never laughed after. Maud, who only survived and
escaped that calamity, married the Emperor Henry the Fourth. Her
husband dying without children, she returned into England to her
father. He was willing to settle the succession on her, and in order
thereto, because she was a widow and childless, if he himself should
die he caused all the Nobility to swear an oath of fealty to her, and
in hopes that she might have children he married her to Geoffry
Plantagent, Earl of Anjou. Five years after that marriage Robert,
Duke of Normandy, and King Henry died, and Geoffry of Anjou, falling
into a dangerous disease, lay bedrid. In the meantime Stephen, Earl
of Bologne, in this want of royal issue took heart to attempt the
crown of England. Neither did he look upon it as a design of any
great difficulty, both by reason of the weakness of the adverse
party, and also because he himself had some royal blood running in
his veins. For he was born of a daughter of William the Norman which
had married the Earl of Bloys. He himself has also married Maud,
daughter of the former Earl of Bologne and cousin-german to Maud the
Empress, and begotten upon Mary, sister to David, King of
Scotland.
25.
And to make his way clearer, without any conscience or regard of his
oath which
he and th’other kindred had taken to Queen Maud,
he drew in by great promises the bishops of England, who had also
taken the same oath, into his unlawful design, and especially
William, Arch-bishop of York, who was the first that swore allegiance
to Queen Maud, and Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, who had not only taken
the oath himself but had also read the words of it to the other
Nobles when they swore. Upon this confidence, even before his uncle
Henry was buried he stept into the throne, and the two first years
reigned peaceably enough. Whereupon, growing insolent, he began to
neglect his agreement made with the English, and also to deal harshly
with strangers. After he had compelled all the English, partly by
fear, partly by fair promises, to take an oath of allegiance to him,
he sent embassadors to David King of Scots, to put him in mind to
take the same oath for the counties of Cumberland, Northumberland and
Huntingdon, which he held of him. David returned answer that he,
together with Stephen himself and the other Nobles of England, had
not long since bound themselves by an oath to obey Maud their lawful
Queen, and that he ought not, nor would acknowledge any other King as
long as she was alive. When this answer was brought to Steven,
presently a war began. the English entred upon the adjacent Scots,
the Scots doing as much for them. The next year, an army of Scots
under the conduct of the Earls of Merch, of Menteith and of Angus,
entred England and met the English at the town of Allerton,
whose General was the Earl of Glocester. A sharp battel was there
fought with equal slaughter on both sides as long as the army stood
to it. At last, the English being overthrown, many perished in the
flight and many of the Nobility were taken prisoners, amongst whom
was the Earl of Glocester himself. Stephen, being much concerned at
this overthrow, lest the friends and kindred of the captive Nobles
might be alienated from him, refused no conditions of peace. The
terms were these: that the English prisoners should be released
without ransom; that Stephen should quit all the claim which as chief
lord he pretended to have over Cumberland. But Stephen observed these
conditions no better than he did the oath formerly taken to Maud his
kinswoman. For before the armies were quite disbanded and the
prisoners released, he privately surprized some castles in
Northumberland, and by driving away booties from the Scots countrys
renewed the war. The Scots, gathering a sudden army together out of
the neighbour countrys and despising the English whom they had
overthrown in battel the self same year, did rashly run on to the
conflict at the River Tees,
where they paid for their folly in undervaluing the enemy by
receiving a great overthrow, and were also enforced to quit
Northumberland. David, to retrieve this loss and ignominy, gathered
as great an army as ever he could together and came to Roxburgh.
Thither Turstan or (as William of Newberry calls him)
Tustinus Archbishop of York
was sent by the English to treat concerning a pacification, and,
there being some hope of agreement, a truce was made for three months
upon condition that Northumberland should presently be restored to
the Scots.
26.
But this promise, which was made by Stephen only to have the army
disbanded,
was not performed, so that David drove away a great booty
out of that part of Northumberland which obeyed Stephen, and Stephen,
gathering a great force together, pierced as far as Roxborough. But
understanding that the Nobility were averse and complained that they
were intangled in an unjust and unnecessary war, without performing
any memorable exploit he retired into the heart of his kingdom. And
the next year, fearing some intestine sedition, he sent his wife Maud
to David her uncle to treat of peace. Upon her mediation it was
accorded that David from Newcastle, where he commonly aboad, and
Stephen from Durham should send arbitrators for composing of matters
to the town of Chester in the Street, scituate in the midway equally
distant from both places. David sent the Arch-bishops of St. Andrews
and Glasgoe, Stephen the Arch-bishops of Canterbury and York. Both
parties were the more inclineable to peace because Stephen feared war
from abroad and seditions at home, and the Scots complained that they
were forced to bear the shock of war made in the behalf of another,
whereas Maud, for whose sake it was commenced, did nothing at all in
it. The peace was made on these conditions: that Cumberland, as by
ancient right, should be possessed by David, and that Northumberland
unto the River Tees (as William of Newberry, the Englishman, writes)
and Huntingtonshire should be enjoyed by Henry, Davids son, upon the
account of his mothers inheritance; and that he should do homage to
Stephen for the same. When things were thus composed, David retired
into Cumberland and Stephen into Kent. This peace was made in the
year of our Lord 1139. In which year Maud, being returned into
England, sent her son Henry, afterward King of England, to Carlisle
to David his great uncle that he might be instructed in feats of arms
and also be made knight by him, who without doubt was the
excellentest warrior of his time, which matter in those days was
performed with a great deal of ceremony.
27. At that time there was so great a disturbance in England by
reason of domestique discords that no part of it was free from a
civil war but that which David the King of Scots held.
And that he alone might not plead exemption from
the public calamity, within three years after his son, the only heir
(in hope) of so much power and felicity, dyed in the flower of his
age, leaving three sons and as many daughters behind him. He left so
great a love behind for him, both from the Scots and English, that,
besides the publick loss, every one lamented his own private
misfortune also at his death. For so great a sincerity and moderation
of mind shined forth in him, even in that age wherein youth is
accustomed to wantonize, that every body expected most rare and
singular fruits from his disposition when it was ripened by age. His
fathers grief was also further increased by reason of the tender age
of his nephew and the ambition and restless disposition of Stephen;
and if he dyed, he was troubled at the fierceness of Henry’s
spirit, then in the fervor of his youth, who, being the son of Maud,
was to succeed in the kingdom. When the thoughts of so many foreseen
mischiefs did assault his diseased and feeble mind, insomuch that all
men imagined he would have sunk under them, yet he bore up so stoutly
that he invited some of the prime Nobility (who were solicitous for
him lest he should be too much afflicted, as well they might) to
supper, and there he entertained them with a discourse, rather like a
comforter than a mourner.
28.
He told them that no new thing had hapned to him or to his son. That he
had long
since learned from the sermons of learned and holy
men that the world was governed by the providence of Almighty God,
Whom it was a foolish and impious thing to endeavour to resist. That
he was ignorant his son was born on no other terms but that he must
also dye, and so pay that debt to nature which he owed even at his
very birth. And when men were always ready to pay that debt, ’twas
no great matter when God, their Creditor, called upon them for it.
That if only wicked men were subject to death, then a man might
justly grieve at the decease of his kindred; “But when we see
good men also dye, all Christians (said he) ought to be throughly
setled in this persuasion that no evil can happen to the good, either
alive or dead, and therefore why should we be so much troubled at a
short separation, especially from our kindred, who have not so much
left as us they have gone before us to our common country, whither we
also, tho we should live never so long, must yet at last follow? As
for my son, if hath undertaken this voyage before us that so he might
visit and enjoy the fellowship of my parents and brethren, those
precious men, beforehand, if we are troubled at it, let us take heed
that we seem not rather to envy his happiness than to mourn for our
own loss. As for you, worthy lords, as I am beholding to you for so
many office of respect, so both I and my son (for I shall undertake
also for him) are much obliged for your loves to me and your grateful
and pious memory of him.” This greatness of mind in the King,
as it added much to his own veneration, so it increased the sense of
the loss of his son in the minds of all, when they considered what a
prince they and their children were deprived of. And David, that he
might make use of the only way of consolation which was left him,
caused his nephews and his sons children to be brought to him and to
be trained up in Court-discipline, which was then most pious. In
fine, he provided for their security as far as human counsel could
foresee. He commended Malcolm, the eldest of the three, to the care
of the whole Nobility, and particularly of Mackduff Earl of Fife, a
very powerful and prudent man, and he caused him to carry him all
over the land that so he might be received as the undoubted heir of
the kingdom. William, the next son, he made Earl of Northumberland,
and sent him presently to take possession of that country. David, the
third son, he made Earl of Huntington in England, and of Garioch in
Scotland. He made the more haste to prefer them because, being sick
of a mortal disease, he foresaw his time could not be long in this
world. He dyed in the year of Christ 1153,
the ninth of the Calends of June.
He was so well beloved that all men thought they had lost rather a
father in him, yea, the best of fathers, than a King. For tho his
whole life was so devout as no history records the like, yet for some
few years before his death he devoted himself to the preparation for
his later end, so that his deportment then did much increase mens
veneration for the former part of his life. For tho he equalled
former Kings who were most praise-worthy in the art of war, and
excelled them in the study of peace, yet now, leaving off contending
with others for superiority in virtue, he maintained a combat with
himself alone, wherein he advanced so much that, if the highest and
most learned wits should endeavour to give the idea or pattern of a
good King, they could never comprehend in their thoughts such an
exemplary prince as David shewed himself in his whole life to be. He
reigned 29 years, 2 months and 3 days.

29. MALCOLM IV, THE NINETY
SECOND KING

His nephew
Malcolm succeeded him, who, tho yet underage, gave great hopes of his
future ingenuity. For he was so educated by his father and
grandfather that he seemed to resemble them as much in the virtues of
his mind as in the lineaments of his body. In the beginning of his
reign a great famine raged
all over Scotland, whereby great numbers of men and cattle also were
destroyed.
At that time, one Somerled was Thane of Argyl, whose
fortune was above his family, and his mind above his fortune. He,
conceiving some hopes to enjoy the kingdom by reason of the King’s
non-age and the present calamity, gathered a band of his confidents
together and invaded the adjacent countries. Yea, the havock he made
was spoken of far and neer, and the fear of him spreading itself
further, many bad men coming in to him and some good being forced to
joyn with him too, in a short time he made up a vast army. Upon the
report of this tumult, Donald also, the son of Malcolm Macbeth, made
another bustle, but, being taken at Whithorn in Galway and sent to
the King, he was committed to the same prison with his father; but
soon after the King was reconciled to them and they were both
released. Gilchrist, Earl of Angus, was sent with an army against
Somerled, who defeated and killed many of his men and caused him with
some few more to fly into Ireland. This victory, thus unexpectedly
and suddainly obtained, produced tranquillity at home but envy
abroad. For Henry, King of England, an ambitious prince and desirous
to inlarge his own dominions, resolved with himself to curb the
growing greatness and power of Malcolm. But he could not well make
open war upon him out of conscience of that pact and oath which he
had sworn to him. For when he received the military girdle (as the
custom is) from King David, Malcolm’s grandfather, at Carlisle,
he promised and took an oath on it (as William of Newberry, besides
our own writers, says), that he would never go about to deprive
either David himself or any of his posterity of any part of those
possessions which David then held in England. He being somewhat bound
up by this oath, that he might find out some colour for his
calumniations he resolved to try the Kings patience in a lesser
matter.
30.
When John, Bishop of Glascow, was dedicating churches, shaving priests,
and performing
the other parts of his episcopal office (as
then they were judged to be) all over Cumberland, Henry, by Trustine,
Archbishop of York, sent a new bishop into that country called the
Bishop of Carlisle. John was so moved at the injury that, seeing no
sufficient safeguard neither in the King nor in the law, he left his
bishoprick and retired into the monastery of Tours in France. Whence
he returned not until the Pope, at Malcolm his request, drew him
unwillingly out of his cell and made him return to his own country.
Malcolm bore the wrong better than some hoped, so that, not thinking
it a sufficient cause for a war, he went to Chester in the Street,
there to quiet suspicions and to cut off occasions of discord. Being
arrived there, by the fraud of Henry he was circumvented and made to
take an oath of fidelity to him, whereas it was not the King himself
but his brothers who had lands in England according to an old
agreement, who were to take that oath. But this was craftily and
maliciously devised by the English King to sow the seed of discord
amongst brethren, which the following year did more fully appear when
he cokes’d Malcolm out of Northumberland, which was his brother
William’s patrimony. For he sent him to London that, according
to the examples of his ancestors, he in a publick assembly might
acknowledge himself his feudatary for the lands which he held in
England. He under covert of the publick faith came speedily thither,
but without doing any thing of that for which his journey was
pretended. He was inforced against his will, with that little retinue
which he had, to accompany Henry into France. Henry’s design
herein was partly that the Scots might not attempt any thing against
him in his absence, and partly to alienate the mind of Lewis, King of
France, from him. Thus Malcolm was compelled for fear of a greater
mischief to go against his old friend, and was not suffered to come
back to his own country till King Henry, having made no great
earnings in the French war, returned home also. Then Malcolm obtained
leave to return to Scotland, where in a convention of the Nobility he
declared to them the adventure of his travels; but he found a great
part of them very much incensed that he had joyned with a certain
enemy against an old and trusty friend, and did not foresee the
artifices by which Henry had gulled him. The King, on the other side,
alleged that he was haled unwillingly into France by a King in whose
power he was, and to whom he dared to deny nothing at that time, and
therefore he did not despair but the French would be satisfied and
appeased when they understood he was hurried thither by force and
carried none of his country forces along with him. This harangue,
without much ado, quieted the sedition for the present, which was
almost ready to break out.
31.
But Henry, who had spies every where, knew that the tumult was rather
suspended
than that the minds of men were reconciled to him,
and therefore he summoned Malcolm to come to a convention at York.
There he was accused of a pretended crime, that the English had been
worsted in France principally by his means, and therefore it was
referred to the assembly whether he ought not to lose all the
countries which he held in England. Though he answered all the
objected crimes and fully cleared himself, yet he found all their
ears shut against him as being prepossessed by the fears or favour of
their King, so that a decree was made in favour of Henry. Neither was
he contented with this injury, but he also suborned some persons fit
for his purpose to bruit it abroad that Malcolm had freely and of his
own accord quitted his interest in those countries. At which his
subjects the Scots were so incensed that at his return home they
besieged him in Perth and had almost taken him. But by the
intervention of some great men their anger was somewhat abated, when
he had informed the Nobility how unjustly and fraudulently Henry had
despoiled him of his ancient patrimony. Whereupon they unanimously
agreed upon a war, that so he might recover by just arms what was
unlawfully taken from him by force. Thus a war was decreed, denounc’d
[declared], and waged, not without great inconveniencies to
both nations. At last both Kings came to a conference not far from
Carlisle, and after much dispute pro and con Henry took away
Northumberland from Malcolm, leaving him Cumberland and
Huntington-shire. Henry had no other pretence for his ambitious
avarice than this, that he could not suffer so great a diminution to
be made of his kingdom. But, seeing no respect to justice and right,
no pacts, covenants, no nor the religion of an oath could hinder the
unsatiable avarice of Henry, Malcolm, being a man of low spirit and
too desirous of peace upon any conditions whatever, accepted of his
terms, sore against the minds of the Scots Nobility, who denied that
the King could alienate any part of his dominions without the general
consent of the Estates. After this, the King began to be despised by
his subjects as not having fortitude or prudence enough to weild the
scepter. Neither did any thing bridle their fierce minds from rising
in arms but a greater fear from Henry, who (they knew) did aim at the
conquest of the whole island, being encouraged thereunto by the
simplicity of Malcolm and by his hopes of foreign aid.
32.
This general disaffection to the King did much lessen the reverence of
his government.
A rebellion was first begun by Angus, or
rather Aeneas, of Galway, a potent man yet more encouraged by the
Kings sloth than his own power. Gilchrist was sent against him, who
overthrew him in three fights and compelled him to take sanctuary in
the monastery of White-horn, out of which it was not counted lawful
to pull him by force, and therefore, after a long siege, being driven
to the want of all necessities, he was forced to capitulate. He was
to lose part of his estate for his punishment and his son was to be
given as an hostage for his good behaviour for the future. But he,
being of a lofty spirit and not able to endure his abatement of his
former greatness, turn’d monk, shaved himself, and shut himself
up in a monastery near Edinburgh to avoid the shame and scorn of men.
Neither was there peace in other parts of the realm, for the
Murray-men, being always given to mutinying, rose in arms under
Gildo, or rather Gildominick, their captain, and did not only spoil
the circumjacent counties, but when Heralds of Arms were sent from
the King they most barbarously slew them. Gilchrist was sent out
against them also with a greater army, but with unlike success. for
the valour of an adversary, which is wont to be a terrour to other
rebels, drove those wicked persons, conscious of their own demerits,
to desperation, and therefore, endeavouring to sell their lives as
dear as they could, they routed the opposite army and became
conquerors. Malcolm upon this overthrow recruited his old army and
marched into Murray, and met the Murray-men at the mouth of the River
Spey; who, though they knew that the Kings forces were encreased and
theirs diminished in the late fight, yet, being encouraged by the
opportunity of their place and their newly obtained victory, they
resolved to adventure a battel. The fight was carried on with great
resolution and no less slaughter, for the Moravians gave not back
till the Kings forces, being wearied, had new releif from reserves
sent them. Then the Moravians were broken and there was no more
fighting, but killing. The fury of the soldiers spared nor age nor
rank of men. In this fight the old Moravians were almost all slain,
which punishment, though cruel, seemed not to be undeserved, and the
greatness of the revenge was allayed and made excuseable by the
savage cruelty of that perfidious people against others. Hereupon new
colonies were sent into the lands of the slain.
33.
Nor did Sumerled in this hurly burly think it fit to set still. He (as
I said
before) after his overthrow fled into Ireland, and from
that time forward exercised pyracy upon the coasts of Scotland. But
now judging that, a great part of the military men being slain in
battel, he might either get a rich booty from those who would shun
the hazard of fighting, or else an easie victory from them who would
stand to it, gathered a great band of roysters [roisterers,
unruly men] together and, arriving at the Firth or bay of the
River Clyde, there made a descent. And fortune at first favouring his
design, he penetrated as far as Renfreu. But there, whilst he was
more intent on plunder than on the safety of his men, he was
surprized by a far less number than his own and lost all his
soldiers, he himself being saved and brought alive to the King for
further scorn and punishment, though some say that both he and his
son too were slain in the battel. These things were acted about the
year of Christ 1165. The kingdom being thus quieted from all tumults,
an assembly of all the estates was indicted at Scone, where many
things were decreed for the confirmation of the state of the kingdom,
and amongst the rest the whole assembly unanimously made it their
request to the King that he would think of marriage, in regard he was
now fit for it, as being above twenty two years of age, and by that
means he might beget children to succeed him. They told him it was a
publick debt due to the kingdom, as well as a private one to his
family, and that he ought to mind not only the present time, but to
have a prospect to the tranquillity of future ages too. His answer
was that ever since he had been capable to order and direct his own
life, he had solemnly vowed to God to live a continent and a
batchelor’s life. “Which vow (said he) I think was the
more acceptable to God both because He gave me the strength to
perform it, and also because He hath prepared heirs already to
succeed me, so that I am not compelled to break my vow, neither by
any weakness of my own spirit nor by any other publick necessity.” Thus
dismissing the Parliament, having peace abroad, he applied his mind to
the arts
of his forefathers, i. e., building of churches and
donations on monks, wherein he would have exceeded his ancestors if
God had given him a longer life. For he died not long after, on the
fifth of the Ides of December,
in the twenty fifth year of his age, and a little more than the
twelfth year of his reign, and in the year of our redemption
1165.

34. WILLIAM, THE NINETY THIRD KING

His brother
William succeeded him, who entred upon the kingdom fifteen days after
Malcolm’s death. He would transact no publick or private
business of any weight till he had craved of Henry of England the
restitution of Northumberland. Henry commanded him to come to London
to do him homage for the counties of Cumberland and Huntington
according to custom, which he did, not unwillingly, yet desisted not
from pressing to have Northumberland restored. Henry gave him an
ambiguous answer, saying that in regard Northumberland was taken away
from Malcolm and given to him by the States of the kingdom, he could
not part from it without their consent, but he should come to the
next Parliament and there expect justice to be done. William, though
he expected no good from the Parliament, yet, to cut off all
occasions of calumny from his adversary, resolved to wait in England
for the convening and opening of it, and in the mean time he
accompanied Henry, though against his will, to the war in France.
There he profited nothing by his daily solicitations, and forseeeing
that the King would not speedily return into England, with much ado
he obtained a convoy and returned into Scotland. After his return the
first thing he did was to repress the insolencies of thieves and
robbers by punishing and clearing the country of the offenders. Then
he erected castles and placed garisons in convenient places to
prevent suddain invasions. At last he sent ambassadors into England
to demand Northumberland, denouncing war in case of refusal. Henry,
being intangled in the French war, yielded up to him that part of
Northumberland which William’s great grandfather held. William
took it, but upon this condition, that he would not remit his right
in, or claim to, the rest. The English King took this very heinously,
and being sorry he had parted with any of Northumberland before the
controversie was decided, he made incursions into the Scots Borders
and thus sowed the seeds of a new war. And by this means he hoped to
have taken away also the other lands which he would have brought into
dispute. When right was claimed by the Wardens of the Marches
according to custom, the English complained that their Borders were
molested by Scotish robbers, so that the ambassadors were sent away
without obtaining the thing they came for; yea, almost without an
answer. The Scots, to obtain that by force which they could not do by
fair means, levied an army and entred upon and wasted the bordering
lands of the English with fire and sword. This being about harvest,
the English, in the absence of their King, were content only to stand
upon the defensive what they could, but then levied no army. Yet, the
winter following, some actions passed and many incursions were
made.
35.
The next summer William listed a great army and marched into the
enemies country.
The English, having few or no forces ready to
withstand them, send ambassadors to their camp proffering a great sum
of money for a truce; which if they could obtain, they gave hopes
that all things would be accorded to content [done in such a way
as to content him]. William, being a plain-hearted man and
willing to preserve peace (if obtainable upon reasonable conditions)
before a war, though a just one, gave credit to their fallacious
promises. The English spent all the time of the cessation in
preparations for war, but in the mean time they plied the Scots with
ambassadors who made large promises, though their true errand was to
discover their enemies camp. And finding the Scots, on confidence of
the truce, re-miss and negligent, and the greatest part of their army
scattered to get in forage, they returned and gave their army notice
that now was a fair opportunity for action, which they urged them not
to omit. Whereupon, placing the greatest part of their army in
ambush, about four hundred nimble horsemen, in the third watch a few
hours before sun-rising, marched directly to Alnwick, where the Scots
camp was pitcht. There, finding all things in greater security
[carelessness] than they expected, they set upon the King who
was riding up and down with sixty horse only, as if there had been a
setled peace, and before they could well be discerned whether they
were friends or enemies (for they disguised themselves with Scots
arms and ensigns that they might pass for Scots) they took him
prisoner in the nineth year of his reign. Some few were rouzed up at
the hubbub and pursued scatteringly; divers of them rushed amongst
their enemies, as not being willing to forsake their King, and so
were made prisoners also. William was carried to Henry, then warring
in France. The English, being elated with this unexpected success,
invaded Cumberland, thinking to carry it without blows. But Gilchrist
and Rolland, two Scots commanders, did so entertain them that, being
repuls’d, they made a truce and were content to enjoy
Northumberland only as long as the Scots King was a prisoner, and to
leave Cumberland and Huntington-shire to the free possession of the
Scots. In the mean time David, the brother of William, Earl of
Huntington in England and of Garioch in Scotland, who then fought
under the English banners, received a convoy and returned into
Scotland, where, having setled things for the present, he sent
embassadors into England about the redemption of his brother, who was
then kept prisoner at Falise, a town in Normandy. The King gave
fifteen hostages to the English and surrendred up four castles, viz.,
the castle of Roxburgh, of Berwick, of Edinburgh, and of Sterling,
and then he was permitted to return home in the Calends of February.
But then he was called upon by the English to appear at York with his
Nobles and bishops on the 18th of the Calends of September. Neing
arrived there, he and all his followers (who were the chief Nobility)
took an oath of obedience to King Henry and gave up the kingdom of
Scotland into his guardianship and patronage. These conditions, to
very hard, yet the Scots were willing to accept of, that so they
might have the best of Kings restored to them, as the English writers
say. Thomas Walsingham of England writes that this surrender was not
made at York, but at Constance. Yet some say that this interview of
both Kings was not in order to the surrender of the kingdom, but for
the payment of certain pecuniary pensions, and that the castles were
put into the hands of the English as cautionaries only till the money
was paid. This opinion seems to me most probable, as appears by the
league renewed by Richard, Henrys son, of which in its due place.
36. William at his return, in a few months, by Gilchrist his General,
quelled the insurrections made in his absence in Galway. On the
fourth of the Calends of February
there was an assembly indicted at Norham by Tweed. Thither William
came, where the English laboured extreamly that all the Scots bishops
should acknowledge the Archbishop of
York for their Metropolitan. The Popes Legate also concurred with them
in their
desire, and earnestly pressed that it might be so
enacted. After a long dispute the Scots answered that at present few
of their country men were there, and that they could not bind the
absent to obey their decree, if they should consent to any. Hereupon
the matter was deferred to another time, and shortly after the Scots
bishops sent agents to Rome to justify their cause before Alexander
the Third, by whose decree the bishops of Scotland were freed from
the yoke of the English, and so the messengers returned joyfully
home. Not long after, Gilchrist, whom I have often mentioned before,
slew his wife, who was the King’s sister, because she had
committed adultery. Whereupon he was summoned to appear on a certain
day, but, not coming, was banished for ever. His houses were
demolished and his goods confiscate. About the same time the castle
of Edinburgh was restored to the Scots, one of the pensions having
been paid, and to make the concord between both Kings more firm a law
was made that neither King should harbour the enemy of each other.
Upon this law, Gilchrist, who lived banished in England, was forced
to return, and, shifting from place to place as a stranger amongst
strangers and unknown, he passed his miserable life in great penury
and want. In the interim William prepared for an expedition into
Murray to suppress the the thieves of the Aebusae, whose captain was
Donald Bane, i. e., The White, who derived his pedigree from the
Kings and had also assumed the name of King. He made his descent from
his ships in many places and spoiled not only the maritime parts but,
his boldness increasing by reason of his impunity, those places also
which were very remote from the sea. The King sent out ships to sail
about and burn his fleet whilst he with a land army attacqued them,
and, so doing, he put them almost all to the sword. In his return, as
he was near Perth, he found three countrymen which yet seemed to be
more than so, had it not been for their shabby and uncouth habit, who
seemed to avoid meeting any company. But the King caused them to be
brought to him, and, viewing them intently, was very intent to know
what manner of creatures they were. Gilchrist, being the elder of
them, fell down at the King’s feet and, making a miserable
complaint of his misfortunes, tells who he was. Upon which, the
memory of his former life, which he had passed with so much
splendour, did so passionately affect all that were present that they
could not chuse but to fall a-weeping. Whereupon the King commanded
him to rise from the ground, and restored him to his former dignity
and the same degree of favour he had before. These things fell out
about the year 1190, at which time Richard, who the year before had
succeeded Henry his father in the realm of England, prepared for an
expedition into Syria.
He restored the castles to the King of Scots and sent back the
hostages, freeing him and his posterity from all pacts, either
extorted by force or obtained by fraud, made with the English, and
suffered him to enjoy the realm of Scotland by the same right, and
within the same limits as Malcolm or any former Kings had held it.
Matthew Paris
makes mention of these conditions.
37. William, on the other side, that he might not be ungrateful to
Richard, upon his going to war into a strange country gave him 10000
marks
of silver and commanded David his brother, who was declared Earl of
Huntington,
to follow him into Syria. This David in his
return from thence had his navy scattered by tempest, was taken
prisoner by the Aegyptians, redeem’d by the Venetians, and at
last, being known at Constantinople by an English merchant, after
four years time he returned into Scotland and was received with the
general gratulation of all men, especially of his brother. Boetius thinks
that the town where this David was landed in safety, before-named
Alectum, was
called Deidonum [God’s Gift],
but because the name of Alectum is found in no author but only Hector
Boetius, I rather think it was called Taodunum, a word compounded of
Tay and Dun, i. e., Dundee. Not long after, Richard, after many
hazards and misfortunes, returned also from the same voyage. William
and his brother came to congratulate him upon his return and have him
2000 marks of silver as a largess, being moved thereunto either out
of remembrance of his former bounty to him or on the consideration of
his present want. Neither were ever the Scots and English more
gracious than at that time, as many judge. There William fell very
sick, and a rumour of his death being noised abroad caused new
combustions in Scotland. Harald, Earl of the Orcades and of
Caithness, hated the Bishop of Caithness because (as he alledged) he
was the obstacle that he could not obtain what he desire of the King;
and therefore he took him prisoner, cut out his tongue, and also put
out his eyes. The King, returning home, overthrew Harald in several
skirmishes and destroyed most of his forces. Harald himself was taken
in his flight and brought back to the King, who when eyes also were
first put out by way of retaliation was afterwards hanged, his whole
male-stock was gelded, the rest of his kin and companions of his
wickedness were deeply fined. These things are thus related by Hector
Boetius, and common report confirms them; yea, the hill receiving its
name from testicles gives credit to the relation, so that it seems
truer than what others write in this matter. These things happened in
the year of our salvation 1198, in which year the King had a son
named Alexander born to him, and Richard of England dying, his
brother John succeeded him.
38.
Whereupon the King of Scots went into England to take his oath to him
for the
lands which he held in England, and in the beginning of
John’s new reign his coming was not more acceptable than his
departure displeasing, because he refused to follow John in his
expedition into France against Philip his old friend. So that, as
soon as John returned out of France, he sought occasion for a war
with the Scots and began to build a fort over against Berwick.
William, having in vain complained of the injurie by his embassadors,
gathered a company together and demolished what was built thereof.
Upon which, armies were levied on both sides, but when their camps
were near to one another peace was made by the intervention of the
Nobles, on these terms: that William’s two daughters should be
given in matrimony to John’s two sons, assoon as ever they were
marriageable. A great dowry was promised, and caution made that no
fort should be built, and hostages also were given in the case.
William at his return fell into an unexpected danger. The greatest
part of the town of Berth was swept away in the night by an
inundation of the River Tay. Neither was the King’s palace
exempted from the calamity, but his son, an infant, with his nurse
and 14 more were drowned, the rest hardly escaping. The King,
perceiving the water had overwhelmed the greatest part of the ground
on which the city stood, and that almost every house in the town had
suffered thereby, caused a new city to be built a little below in a
more commodious place on the same River, and, making some small
variation of the name, called it Perth, in memory (as some say) of
one Perth, a Nobleman who gave the King the land on which the city
was built. About the same time the King took Gothered Makul, captain
of the rebels in the North, who was betrayed to him by his own men.
When he was prisoner, he constantly abstained from all food to
prevent, as ’tis thought, a more heavy punishment.
39.
This was in a manner the last memorable fact of William’s,
which yet, in regard of his unwieldy age, was acted by his captains.
For he dyed soon after, in the 74th year of his age and the 49th of
his reign, A. D. 1214.
Not long before his death leagues were renewed with John, King of
England, almost every year. For he, being a man desirous to enlarge
his dominions, tho he had war with the French abroad, with the
Romanists at home, and moreover was never on sure terms of peace with
the Irish or Welsh, yet did not break off his inclination to invade
Scotland, which had then an old man for their King and the next heir
to him a child. Frequent conferences happened on this occasion,
rather to try what might be obtained than in hopes of any good issue.
At length the matter broke out into open suspicion, and after many
leagues made between them at last William was called to Newcastle
upon Tine. Whither he came, but there falling into a dangerous
disease, he returned home without doing any thing. In fine, a little
before his death he was invited to Norham on the Tweed, and when his
sickness would not permit him to go, his son was desired to come in
his stead, which yet by the advice of the Council was refused. The
leagues established in those interviews I shall not particularly
mention, for they almost all contain the same things, having in them
nothing new save that in one of them it was articled that the Scotish
Kings should not swear nor be feudataries to the Kings of England
themselves for the English lands they held, by their children only.
The mention of these things is wholly omitted by the English writers
also, I believe for this very cause.

40. ALEXANDER II, THE NINETY
FOURTH KING

William was
succeeded by Alexander his son, begot on Emergard, who was kinswoman
to the King of England and daughter to the Earl of Beaumont. He was
but sixteen years of age when he began to reign. Entring upon the
government in troublesom times, he composed and setled things more
prudently than could be expected from one of his years. First of all
he indicted a publick convention of the Estates, and therein by a
decree he confirmed all the acts of his father, that good and prudent
prince. His first expedition was into England, not out of any private
ambition, but to bridle the tyranny of John, and it was then said
that he was sent for by the ecclesiasticks of that kingdom. He left
Norham upon certain conditions when he had begun to besiege it, and,
piercing further into the kingdom, he carried it very severely
against all the royalists. Upon his return home, John invaded
Scotland quickly after. He made a mighty devastation in Dunbar,
Hadington, and all the neighbouring parts of Lothian; and to spread
the war and ruin further, he determined to return another way.
Alexander, being very desirous to decide it by a battel, pitcht his
tents between the Pentland Hills and the River Eske, which way, as it
was bruited, he would return, but John, to avoid fighting, marched
along by the sea and burnt the monastery of Coldingham. He also took
and burnt Berwick, which was then but meanly fortified. As he thus
marched hastily back, Alexander followed him as fast as he could and,
making great havock all over Northumberland, came as far as Richmond.
But John by speedy marches having retreated into the heart of
England, Alexander returned by Westmorland and laid all waste to the
very gates of Carlisle. The city it self he took by force and
fortified it. The next year Lewis, the son of Philip, King of France,
was sent for by those who favoured the ecclesiastical faction to
London, that so he, upon the proscription of John, might possess the
kingdom, and so was King Alexander of Scotland too, who came to aid
his old friend. But John, being forsaken by his subjects and
assaulted also by foreign arms, upon the payment of a great sum of
money at present, and the promise of a perpetual pension, and
moreover transferring the right of the kingdom of England to the
Pope, so that the Kings of England for the future were to be his
feudatories, was received into favour, so that he obtained letters
from Rome by Cardinal Galo, a man of known avarice, wherein the Scots
and French were with great threats forbid to meddle with a people
which were tributaries to the Holy See. Upon this sudden change of
things, Lewis returned into France and Alexander into Scotland, but
his return home was not so quiet as his entrance into England was.
For the English, pressing upon the rear of his retiring army, took
many of the stragglers prisoners. And besides, John had broken down
all the bridges on the Trent and had fastned sharp pikes or
palisadoes in all its fords, removing away all ships and boats, so
that it seemed to be so great an impediment unto him that he could
not avoid it, but must certainly be destroyed.
41. In the mean time, John was poysoned by an English monk at Newark,
a
town seated on the Trent, and being carried in a litter, died in two
days. That
casualty [event] opened the way for Alexander’s
march. Then, blaming and punishing his men for their former
carelessness, he marched on more circumspectly, but not without the
great damage of those through whose countrys he passed. for
whatsoever could be driven away or carried he took with him, and so
returned home with a great booty. Galo, the Popes Legat, when he had
setled Henry, the son of John, in the throne, mulcts the Nobles of
England in a great some of money, and then received them into favour.
And to give them some recompence for their loss by the like calamity
of their enemies, he excommunicates Lewis of France and Alexander of
Scotland in hopes to obtain some prey from them also. The Scots were
interdicted all divine offices, for he imagined that his thundring
curses would prevail more amongst the simple vulgar than with the
Kings. But at last peace was made between the two Kings: the Scots
were to restore Carlisle and the English Berwick, and the ancient
bounds at Kings-Cross were
to be observed by them both. Alexander and his subjects were released
from their
censures by the English bishops, who were
authorized thereunto. Hereupon Galo was much enraged that so great a
prey should be taken out of his hands, so that he turned his anger on
the bishops and the rest of the clergy in Scotland, as his own
peculiar [personal subjects] with whom Kings had nothing to
do. He summoned them to appear at Alnwick. Whither when they came,
the more fearful appeased his wrath with money; the more resolute
were cited to Rome. But there, having also received many letters from
some of the English bishops and abbats directed to the Pope
concerning the sordid spirit of the ambassador or Legat, made
grievous complaints against him, calling him the firebrand of all
mischief because he studied not the publick good, but his own
avarice, and did chaffer [bargain] for and sell peace and war
amongst princes at his own pleasure. Galo, not being able to acquit
himself of the crimes laid to his charge, was fined by the Pope in
the loss of the money he had got, which was to be divided amongst his
accusers. Hereupon they returned home, loaden with large promises but
with empty purses.
42.
A few years after, Henry of England, being now grown ripe both in years
and judgment,
came to York. There he agreed with Alexander in
the presence of Pandulphus, the Popes Legat, to take Joan, Henry’s
sister, to wife, by whom yet, because of her untimely death, he had
no children. From that time there was peace between both Kings as
long as they lived. There he also solemnly promised and swore before
the same Pandulphus that he would bestow the two sisters of Alexander
in honourable marriages according to their dignity, as his father had
promised before. But one of them returned home unmarried, one only
being bestowed in marriage. The next year, viz., 1220, the Cardinal
of St. Giles came into England to fish for money for the Holy War,
and accordingly having scraped together a great sum in both kingdoms,
which by his impostures he gulled persons too credulous of, he
luxuriously spent it in his journy, so that he came empty to Rome,
falsely alleging that he was robed by thieves in the way. Another
Legat presently succeeded him, but men, having been twice cheated by
Roman fraud, by a publick decree forbad him to set his foot on land.
Alexander was busied to suppress vices at home, which sprung up by
the licentiousness of war, and he travelled over the whole kingdom
with his Queen to do justice, whilst Gilespy, a Rossian, spoiled Ross
and the neighbour countries. For, passing over the River Ness, he
took and burnt the town of Enverness. He cruelly slew all those that
refused to obey him. John Cumin, Earl of Buchan, was sent against
him, who took him and his two sons as they were shifting up and down
and changing their quarters to secure themselves, and cut off their
heads, and so sent them to the King. About this time, the
Caithnesians entred by night into the bedchamber of Adam their
Bishop, and there killed a monk who was his usual companion (for he
had been before Abbat of Mulross) and one of his bedchamber. As for
the Bishop himself, they grievously wounded him, and, dragging him
into the kitchen, there they burnt him and the house he was in. The
cause of their great cruelty was (as ’tis reported) because the
Bishop was more severe than in former times in exacting his tithes.
The offenders were diligently sought out and most severely punished.
The Earl of Caithnes, though he were not present at the fact, yet was
somewhat suspected, but afterward being brought privately to the King
in the Christmas holy-days, which the Scots call Saturnalia, he
humbly begg’d pardon of the King and obtained it.
43. About this time Alan of Galway, the powerfullest man in Scotland,
departed this life. He left three daughters behind him, of
whom I shall speak hereafter. Thomas, his bastard son,
despising their age and sex, sets himself as lord of the family, and
not contented herewith, he gathers 10000 men together, kills all that
oppose him, and drives booties far and near from all the neighbouring
countries. At last the King sent an army against him, who slew 5000
of the rebels with their General. The same year, Alexander with his
wife went for England to allay the tumults, as much as he could,
raised against Henry, and to reconcile him to the Nobility. Whilest
he was busie about this at York, his wife went with the Queen of
England a pilgrimage to Canterbury, but at her return she fell sick,
died, and was buried at London. Not long after her death the King,
being childless, married Mary, the daughter of Ingelram, Earl of
Coucy in France, in the year of Christ 1239, by whom he had
Alexander, who succeeded his father in the Kingdom. Two years after,
viz., in 1242, whilst the King was hastening to England to visit that
King, newly returned from France, and refreshed himself a while at
Hadington in Lothian with horse-races, the lodging or inn of Patrick
of Gallway, Earl of Athol, was set on fire, wherein he and two of his
servants were burnt, the fire spreading it self a great way further.
It was not thought to have casually happened, because of the noted
fewds between Patrick and the family of the Bizets. And though
William, the chief of that family, was at Forfar, above 60 miles from
Hadington, the same night that the fire happened, as the Queen could
testifie in his behalf, yet because the adverse party, being the
kindred of Patrick, pleaded that many of his servants and tenants
were seen at Hadington at that time, William was summoned to appear.
He came to Edinburgh at the day prefixed, but, not daring to stand to
his tryal because of the potency of his adversaries, which were the
Cumins’s, he would have tryed the matter in a duel. But that
not being accepted, he and some of his sept banished themselves into
Ireland, where he left a noble family of his name and house. There
was also another seditious tumult in Argyle, raised by Sumerled son
of the former Sumerled, but he was soon suppressed by Patrick Dunbar,
and, submitting to the Kings mercy, obtained pardon for all his past
offences. The King not long after fell sick and died in the 51 year
of his age, the 35 of his reign, and of our Lord 1249.

44. ALEXANDER THE III, THE
NINETY FIFTH KING

Alexander the
third, his son, was crowned King at scone the same year, a child not
past eight years old. The power of all things was mostly in the
faction of the Cumins’s. For they turned the publick revenue to
the enrichment of themselves, oppressed the poor, and by false
accusations cut off some of the Nobles who were averse to their
humours and desires, and dared speak freely of the state of the
kingdom; and being condemned, their goods were confiscated and
brought into the Kings exchequer, from whence they (who rather
commanded than obeyed the King) received them back again for their
private emolument. A convention of the Estates being held, the chief
matter in agitation was to pacify the King of England, lest in such a
troublesome time he should make any attempts upon them. And to do it
more easily, an affinity was proposed. This way seemed more
commodious to the anti-Cuminian party to undermine their power, than
openly to oppugn it. Whereupon embassadors were sent to England, who
were kindly received and munifcently rewarded by that King, who
granted them all their desires. The next year, which was 1251, both
Kings met at York, the 8th of the Calends of December.
There on Christmas day this Alexander was made knight by the King of
England, and the day after, the match was concluded betwixt him and
Margarite, Henrys daughter. A peace was also renewed betwixt them,
which as long as Henry lived was inviolably observed. And because
Alexander was yet but a child and under age, it was decreed by the
advice of this friends that he should consult his father-in-law as a
guardian in all matters of weight. Some of the prime men, being
accused by virtue of this decree, secretly withdrew themselves. When
the King returned home, Robert, Abbat of Dumferling, Chancellor of
the kingdom, was accused because he had legitimated the wife of Alane
Durward, who was but the natural or base-born daughter of Alexander
the Second, that so, if the King dyed without issue, she might come
in as heiress. Upon this fear, the Chancellor, as soon as ever he
returned home, surrendered up the Seal to the Nobles. Gamelin,
afterwards Bishop of St. Andrews, succeeded him in this office.
45.
The next three years they who were the King’s Council did
almost every one of them carry themselves as Kings. Whatever they
catched was their own, so that the poor commonalty was left destitute
and miserably oppressed. The King of England, being made acquainted
therewith, out of his paternal affection to his son in law, came to
Werk castle, scituate on the Borders of Scotland, and sent for his
son in law Alexander and his Nobles thither. There by his advice many
advantageous alterations were made, especially of those magistrates
by whose defaults insurrections had been made at home. An also many
profitable statues were enacted for the future. The King returned to
Scotland with his wife, and having an English guard to convey him
home, he resolved to dwel in the castle of Edinburgh. Walter Cumins,
Earl of Monteath, kept the castle, who was disaffected because of the
change of the publick state made by the King of England, yet he was
compelled to surrender it by Patrick Dunbar with the assistance of
the English forces. The greatest part of the Nobility and of the
ecclesiasticks were offended in regard their power was somewhat
abridged by those new statutes, which they looked upon as a yoke
imposed on them by the English and a beginning of their servitude;
yea, they proceeded to that height of contumacy that, being summoned
to give a legal account of their management of affairs in former
times, they made light of the summons. The same persons who were the
principal actors in disturbing things before were now the chief
incouragers to disobedience. They generally the clans of the Cumins’s,
Walter Earlof Monteath, Alexander Earl of Buchan,
John Earl
of Athol, William Earl of Marr and other considerable men of the same
faction. They dared not to put their cause on a legal tryal, as being
conscious to themselves of the many wrongs done to the poor and
meaner sort, yea, to the King himself, and therefore they resolved to
out-face justice by their impudent audacity. For being informed that
the King was but lightly guarded and lived securely [carelessly] at
Kinross, as in a time of peace, they
immediately gathered a band of their vassals abut them, seized him as
he was asleep, and carried him to Sterling; and, as if there were no
force in this case but they had been rightfully elected, they
discharged his servants, took new, and managed all things at their
own will and pleasure, so that now the terror and consternation was
turned upon the former Counsellors. But this sedition was allay’d
by the death of Walter Cumins, who was poysoned, as it is thought, by
his wife, an English woman. The suspicion thereof was encreased on
her because, tho she were wooed by many Nobles, yet she married John
Russel her gallant, a young English spark. She was accused of
witchcraft too, and cast into prison, but she bought out her liberty.
Russel and his wife obtained letters from the Pope permitting them to
commence an action of the case against their adversaries for the
wrong done them before the Pope’s Legate. But it was to no
purpose, because the Scots urged an ancient privilege exempting them
from going out of the kingdom when they were to plead there causes.
When the King was of age, upon the humble petition of the Cumins’s
he pardoned them, as if all their offences had been expiated by the
death of Walter.
46. He was induced so to do (as some say) by reason of the greatness
of their family, and also because he feared foreign wars when matters
were so unsetled at home. But that war began not so soon as men
thought it would. In the year of Christ 1263 on the Calends of
August, Acho
King of Norway, with a fleet of 160 sail, came to Air, a maritime town
of Coil,
where he landed 20000 men. The cause of the
war, as he pretended, was that some islands which were promised to
his ancestors by Mackbeth were not yet put in his hands, viz., Bote,
Aran and both the Cumbras’s, which were never reckoned amongst
the Aebudae. But it was enough for him, who sought a pretence for a
war, that they were called islands. Acho took two of the greatest of
them and reduced their castles before he could meet with any
opposition. Being lifted up by this success, he makes a descent into
Cuningham, the next continent [mainland] over against Bote,
in that part of it which they call the Largs. There
he met with two misfortunes almost at one and the same time. first, he
was overcome
in fight by Alexander Stuart, the great
grandfather him who first of that name was King of Scotland, and
being almost taken by the multitude of his enemies, he hardly escaped
in great fear to his ships. The other was that his ships, being
tossed in a mighty tempest, hardly carried him with a few of his
followers, who escaped into the Orcades. There were slain in that
battel sixteen thousand of the Norwegians and five thousand of the
Scots. Some writers say that King Alexander himself was in this
fight, yet they also make honourable mention of the name of this
Alexander Stuart. Acho died of grief for the loss of his army, and of
his kinsman too, a valiant youth whose name is not mentioned by
writers. His son Magnus, who was lately come to him, perceiving
things in a desperater posture than he ever thought they would be
brought to, especially having no hopes of recruit from home before
the spring, and also finding the minds of the islanders alienated
from him, and that he was forsaken of the Scots too, in confidence of
whose aid his father had undertaken that war; these things
considered, he easily inclined to terms of peace. The spirit of the
young man was quailed both by the unlucky fight and also by his fear
of the islanders. For Alexander had then recovered, by sending about
some ships, the Isle of Man, situate almost in the midst between
Scotland and Ireland, upon these conditions: that the King thereof
should send in ten gallies to the Scots as oft as there was occasion;
and that the Scots should defend him from a foreign enemy. When
Magnus saw that the rest of the islands inclined to follow the
example of the Manks-men, he sent ambassadors to treat of peace,
which Alexander refused to make unless the Aebudae were restored. At
last, by the diligence of the commissioner, it was agreed that the
Scots should have the Aebudae, for which at present they were to pay
1000 marks of silver, and 100 marks an year; and moreover that
Margarite, Alexanders daughter, being then but four years old, should
marry Hangonan, the son of Magnus assoon as she was fit for
marriage.
47.
About this time the King of England, being infested with civil war, had
five
thousand Scots sent him for his assistance under the
command of Robert Bruce and Alexander Cumins, whom the English
writers call John. The greatest part of them were slain in fight, and
Cumins with the English King himself and his son and a great part of
the English Nobility of the Kings party, were taken prisoners.
Moreover the Scots King was much troubled at the arrogance of the
priests and monks in his kingdom, who, being enriched by former
Kings, began to grow wanton in a continual peace; yea, they
endeavoured to be equal, if not superior, to the Nobility, whom they
excelled in wealth. They young Nobility, repining at it and taking it
in great disdain, used them coursly. Whereupon complaints were made
by them to the King, who, imagining either that their wrongs were not
so great as they represented them, or else that they suffered them
deservedly, neglected their pretended grievances, whereupon they
excommunicated all but the King and in great wrath determined to go
to Rome. But the King, remembering what great commotions Thomas
Becket, the prime promoter of ecclesiastical ambition, had lately
made in England, called them back from their journy and caused the
Nobility to satisfie, not only their avarice, but even their
arrogance too. And indeed they were the more inclinable to an accord
with the King because he had lately undertaken the patronage of the
ecclesiastical orders against the avarice of the Romanists. For a
little while before Ottobon, the Popes Legate, was come into England
to appease the civil discourse, but, not being able to effect the
thing he came for, he omitted the publick care and studied his own
private gain and lucre. He indicted an ecclesiastical assembly of the
English, Procters from Scotland being also called thereunto. In the
mean time he endeavoured to exact four marks of silver from every
parish in Scotland and six from all cathedrals, for the expence of
procurations. This contribution or tax was scarce refused when news
was brought that another Legate was arrived in England, intending
also for Scotland, on pretence to gather up money for the Holy War,
and besides that procurable by indulgences and other lime-twigs, to
catch money he endeavoured to wrest from all bishops, abbats and
parish priests (as judging them to be immediately under Papal
jurisdiction) the tenth part of their yearly revenues, that so Edward
and Edmond, sons of the King of England, might go more nobly and
numerously attended to the war in Syria. The Scots judged this tax to
be very grievous and unjust, especially because the English seemed to
be so forward to have it granted, as if Scotland were not sui
iuris or an absolute kingdom, but dependent on England. Moreover,
they were afraid lest the Legat should riotously mispend the money
designed for the war, as was done some years before. Whereupon they
forbad him to enter their borders, but sent him word that they
themselves, without his presence, would gather money for, and send
souldiers to, the Syrian war, and indeed they sent souldiers under
the command of the Earls of Carick and Athol, two of the chief
Nobility, to Lewis King of France; and to the Pope, lest he might
think himself altogether disesteemed, they sent 1000 marks of
silver.
48. The year after, Henry, King of England, died and his son Edward
the First succeeded him, at whose coronation Alexander and his wife
were present. She, returning, died soon after; yea, David the Kings
son and also Alexander, being newly married to the daughter of the
Earl of Flanders, followed her a little time after by their continued
funerals. Margarita also, the Kings daughter, departed this life, who
left a daughter behind her begot by Hargonanus, King of Norway.
Alexander being thus in a few years deprived both of his wife and
children too, took to wife Joleta, the daughter of the the Earl of
Dreux, and within a year he fell from his horse and broke his neck
not far from Kinghorn in
the year of our Lord 1285 and <on> the fourteenth of the
Calends of April. He
lived forty five years, and reigned thirty seven. He was more missed
than any
King of Scotland had been before him, not so much for
the eminent virtues of his mind and the accomplishments of his body
as that people foresaw what great calamities would befal the kingdom
upon his decease. Those wholesome laws which he made are antiquated
by the negligence of men and the length of time, and their utility is
rather celebrated by report than experienced by trial. He divided the
kingdom into four parts, and almost every year he travelled them all
over, staying well near three months in each of them to do justice
and to hear the complaints of the poor, who had free access to him
all that time. Assoon as he went to an assize or sessions, he
commanded the Prefect or Sheriff of that precinct to meet him with a
select number of men, and also to accompany him at his departure to
the end of his bailywick till the next precinct, where he was guarded
by another like company. By this means he became acquainted with all
the Nobility and was well known to them, and the people, as he went,
were not burthen’d with a troop of courtiers, who are commonly
imperious and given to avarice where they come. He commanded the
magistrates to punish all idle persons who followed no trade nor had
any estates to maintain them, for his opinion was that idleness was
the source and fountain of all wickedness. He reduced the horse-train
of the Nobles, when they travelled, to a certain number because he
thought that the multitude of horses which were unfit for war would
spend too much provision. And whereas by reason of unskilfulness in
navigation or else by mens avarice in committing themselves rashly to
sea, many shipwracks had happened, and the violence of pyrates making
an accession thereto, the company of merchants were almost undone, he
commanded they should traffick no more by sea. That order lasted
about an year, but being accounted by many of a publick prejudice, at
length so great a quantity of foreign commodities were imported that
in Scotland they were never in the memory of Man more, or less cheap.
In this case, that he might study [pursue] the good of the
merchants-company, he forbad that any but merchants should buy what
was imported by whole sale, but what every man wanted, he was to buy
it at second hand, or by retail, from them.